Less evolved creatures

Posted in Autism on 30. Dec, 2009

Back in of this year, Wired did a piece called ‘An Epidemic of Fear’ that exposed some of the anti-vaccine charlatans masquerading as purveyors of science that have infested the autism community in the last 10 years or so.

Amy Wallace’s excellent piece (”An Epidemic of Fear,” issue 17.11) isn’t really even about vaccines. It’s about what Thomas Friedman calls the American “dumb as we wanna be” attitude, which combines stunning intellectual laziness, the erroneous concept that all information is equal, and the Internet to create a witches’ brew that we’re using to commit national suicide.

Sadly not just a national malaise, but an international one, Wallace’s piece provoked outraged indignation from those primarily responsible for stirring the Witches brew. The same people that time and again commit the sin of pride as they tell you that they – a handful of business moguls, big titted starlets and antivax lawyers – know as much about the science of vaccination as well, actual scientists who study vaccination and its side effects. Who can forget Jenny McCarthy’s ego-exhortation: her son is her science, a course she passed at Google University.

Wired go on to say:

…We got more mail about our cover story, “An Epidemic of Fear,” than any other piece we’ve published. Dozens of medical professionals commended Amy Wallace’s feature on the fallacies promulgated by the anti-vaccine movement. Meanwhile the anti-vaxers flooded our mailboxes with stories of children injured by vaccinations, chain letters, misogynistic rants, threats, and just plain crazytown (”Sodomite editors should go get AIDS at the Folsom Street Fair,” advised one less-evolved creature).

Less evolved creatues permeate the rank, file and leadership of the autism/antivax community. From the creatures that are proud of the baby eating pieces on Age of Autism to the creatures like Dr Sherri Tenpenny who think its OK for kids to die of the flu:

Study these numbers. We’ve had SARS, Bird flu and Swine flu. On average, approx. 190 children/year die from the flu. Considering there are about 62M kids under the 14 years of age in the US, this is NOT “statistically signficant” and should not even make the radar screen.

In 2010, the less evolved creatures should be given less and less weight. Let them carry on making their noises to themselves and we – the autism community – can carry on talking about things that matter.

3 people like this post.